9 Years Old

And suddenly, they’re 9!

A pretty exciting birthday, this one, with some rather incredible gifts...

From a friend of Trevor's got some of Mommy's old records, which I had forgotten about, but which he had safely tucked away (all we need now is a record player!)

Grandma, Grandpa and Daddy chipped in to buy the boys a WiiU, which not only excited them tremendously, but me, too, because I am the beneficiary of the old Wii, and I already have plans to develop a raffle-based probability unit in Math for my Grade Threes (my colleague and I will raffle tickets to students in our Grade 3 classes, and donate the money raised to a cause linked to our curriculum map in Social Studies and Science -- it’s gonna be great!!!)

But -- oh yes -- this blog post is about the BOYS’ BIRTHDAY, not my classroom, lol!

This year, they’re having their first ever sleep over party: Five silly boys to play video games, pin the tail on the donkey, eat birthday cake and watch a movie together before (hopefully) drifting off to sleep in their sleeping bags on the floor.  So exciting!

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They also each got iPad minis from a very generous friend -- WOW!  They were pretty shocked by it; as Simon said to me this morning, “Mommy, when I saw it in the bag, I thought, wow, cool, an iPad Mini, that’s not for me… I wonder who it’s for?  Neat!” 

But it WAS for them, lucky boys! 

EACH of them got one, complete with a cover in their favourite colours (red and blue), and pre-loaded with some math games and German apps, and of course, a few of their favourites, which they quickly added to with their birthday money (at 99 cents an app, they felt like millionaires with the $25 cheque they had rec’d from a friend of my mother’s in the mail that morning!!)

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Not that I’m some big expert, but I know enough to realize that you can’t just throw a powerful machine like this at an 8-year-old without setting a few parameters.  So, we parents laid down the law(s) right up front (“begin as you mean to go on”):

• No iPads at school, for now (TDSB does not have a BYOD policy that we know of, so far)
• In car only for longer trips, i.e. to Grandmas, PEI, etc.
• Screen-sucking curfew applies as with laptops, 6:30 p.m. all screens off
• Minimum of 10 minutes of math, spelling or german games prior to playing games of choice
• new games or other downloads must first be approved by Mommy, Daddy or Tatsy
  
• as well as a gaming device, iPad must be used as a communication, learning and personal management tool  (we learned how to use email this morning, sending short thank you emails to their benefactor, and taking and sending photos to their dad)

Alex and Simon are pretty stoked about the whole thing.  So am I, as we’ll be using them next year in Argentina, when I home school -- they  really are ideal tools for blogging, and for virtual manipulatives in Math.

My favourite part of the birthday weekend so far, though, has not been the iPad minis.  Rather, it was when Alex sat down to play “chest” (as he calls it) with a family friend who is a VERY accomplished chess player, after dinner last night.

This was his first game with a "real" player.

(click to enlarge)

I am looking forward to the rest of this special birthday weekend!